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A native of Fort Worth, Texas, Franklin was raised by his aunt, Gertrude, having been abandoned as a baby by his mother.[3] Gertrude collected and resold aluminum cans to raise money for Kirk to take piano lessons from the age of four. Kirk excelled in music, being able to read and write music, while also playing by ear.

He received his first contract offer at the age of seven, which his aunt turned down.[3] He joined the church choir and became music director of the Mt. Rose Baptist Church adult choir at the age of eleven.[4]

Despite his strict religious upbringing, Franklin rebelled in his teenage years, and in an attempt to keep him out of trouble, his grandmother arranged an audition for him at a professional youth conservatory associated with a local university. He was accepted, but later he had to deal with a girlfriend's pregnancy and his eventual expulsion from school for behavioral problems.[citation needed]

Kirk Franklin studied music with Jewell Kelly and the Singing Chaparrals at Oscar Dean Wyatt High School. He was under her tutelage for music direction as she allowed him to be the pianist for the choir.[citation needed]

After the shooting death of a friend at the age of 15,[5][6] Franklin returned to the church, where he began to direct the choir once again. He also co-founded a gospel group, The Humble Hearts, which recorded one of Franklin's compositions and got the attention of gospel music legend Milton Biggham. Impressed, Biggham enlisted him to lead the DFW Mass Choir in a recording of Franklin's song "Every Day with Jesus." This led to Biggham hiring Franklin, just 20 years old at the time, to lead the choir at the 1990 Gospel Music Workshop of America Convention, a industry gathering.[3]

In 1992, Franklin organized "The Family", which was a seventeen-voice choir, formed from neighborhood friends and associates. In 1992, Vicki Mack-Lataillade, the co-founder of fledgling record label GospoCentric, heard one of their demo tapes and was so impressed she immediately signed up Kirk & The Family to a recording contract.[7]

In 1993, the group, now known as "Kirk Franklin & The Family," released their debut album, Kirk Franklin & The Family. It spent almost two years on the Gospel music charts and charted on the R&B charts, eventually earning platinum sales status. It remained at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Gospel Albums chart for 42 weeks. It was the first gospel music album to sell over a million units.[citation needed]

Also in 1998, Franklin had made a guest appearance on the hit television sitcom Sister, Sister.[9]

In, 2000, members of The Family filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit for royalties for their work on The Nu Nation Project against Franklin and GospoCentric Records.[6] This saw the end of the "Kirk Franklin & The Family" records, as Kirk went on to become a solo artist, except for his CD Kirk Franklin Presents 1NC, which he did in collaboration with One Nation Crew, and was released that same year.

On January 16, 2010 at the 25th Annual Stellar Awards show taping, in Nashville, Tennessee, Kirk Franklin & The Family reunited briefly on stage to perform songs made popular by them in the 1990s.

In 2013, Franklin started his own record label imprint, Fo Yo Soul Recordings, which is in association with RCA Records, and he has signed acts such as The Walls Group and artists like Tasha Page-Lockhart.[17] These two artists received ten Stellar Award nominations at the 30th Stellar Awards.[17] The Walls Group won seven awards, while Page-Lockhart won three of her own, and Franklin won two more for his label.[17]

In September 2015, Franklin announced his twelfth studio album, Losing My Religion, the album was on released November 13, 2015. The first single off the album "Wanna Be Happy?" was released on August 28, 2015.[18][19][20]

Franklin contributed to Tori Kelly's Hiding Place album, released September 14, 2018. They had intended to collaborate on one song, but it turned into a larger project.[21]

On January 20, 1996, Franklin married long-time friend Tammy Collins.[3] When they wed, they each had one child from previous relationships: Kirk's son Kerrion, born in 1988, and Tammy's daughter Carrington (whom he legally adopted), born in 1989. As a couple, they have two children together, a daughter named Kennedy (born in 1997) and a son named Caziah (born in 2000). Carrington became engaged to Maxx Nakwaasah in October 2015.[22]